


Bullet Points

by novashyperion



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Minor In Game Spoilers, Minor pining, OOC-ness, Pre-Relationship, hinted pining, kind of soft, no beta we die like zagreus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novashyperion/pseuds/novashyperion
Summary: It had been Zagreus’ idea in the first place that Hypnos keep lists.
Relationships: Hypnos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 118





	Bullet Points

Than had asked if Zagreus had been helping him with his duties, but he figured that neither god had really remembered that far enough back. 

Truthfully, Hypnos rarely remembered past a certain time himself. The yesterdays and eons gone past might as well be one big entity, swallowing events and time like the depths of their rivers.. But this, Hypnos did remember.

Zagreus, it seemed, was always at the center of inexplicable machinations. If it wasn’t Mom plopping him down in the nursery with him and his brothers, it was Zagreus doing crazy, impossible things like breaking out of the Underworld, and maybe bringing back the Queen. He’d been making waves in the Styx long before he probably could even comprehend it.

It had been Zagreus’ idea in the first place that Hypnos keep lists. 

It seemed to escape the notice of a lot of the denizens of the Underworld, but Hypnos was the god of sleep. He’d been born quiet and dozing to Mother Night, shortly after Death had breached the world.

He’d spent many nights dozing on and off while his brother and playmates ran around the halls of the Main House; tumbling over Cerberus and pillars and furniture. It was the real reason Lord Hades kept it so barren. The seared footprints and shattered pieces left by a boisterous young prince and his adventuring companions had sought to it. Charon had been a tiny fog-breather back then, pawing at the obols that hung above his crib with rapt, violet eyes. Hypnos had spent more time with Charon then, having fallen asleep through most of the games with the others. 

They’d bothered him a few times to play, but after the last time he set a nightmare about Chronos under their beds, they let him be. Mom had made him promise not to bother Charon with such things. 

  
A shame, in hindsight. Picking on Charon now was a good way to learn how mortals felt when they died. 

Eventually Mom had begun nudging him, bidding him to do more. Charon was growing fast, really fast, and the need to keep the nursery open was coming to an end. The only consequence, save for his sleeping spells, was that he hadn’t known where to start. He’d pondered on it until his eyelids begged to fall, and with it nothing could get done. When asked what he’d done for the night Hypnos could only shrug and grin and say, “Had a good nap!” Which apparently wasn’t the right answer. 

It  _ was _ a good nap, though. He’d journeyed the whole world over, jumping through the dreams of the mortals. He’d largely left them alone, but sometimes he’d mess with a few just for fun. He supposed it was a bit of Chaos in him. He liked to see just what might happen if he fiddled a little, and changed up the parameters. 

Then Zagreus had dropped the idea. Plain as night, and simple as fact. In a rare moment of rest, something incredibly foreign to the Prince, he’d laid with Hypnos in the old nursery. They watched Charon standing, growing bigger than his brothers by the night, and snatching the obols he’d been reaching for since birth. Hypnos had yawned through an explanation for why Mom seemed displeased with him lately; Zagreus was nosy, though no one wanted to admit that.

“Why don’t you just make a list?” Hypnos had sleepily blinked at Zagreus.

“A list?”

“For all the things you want to do. That way you can keep track of it better. Then order it from most fun to least.”

Hypnos hummed, and thought about it. It could work. It was easy enough, and required little effort. He could probably even do it half-asleep if he needed to. After another nap, he did.

He found rolls of parchment and set to work listing things. He messed up a few times, when his writing went off course, or he left drops of ink in unsightly places. And when he got too tired to care about the ink splotches, he realized he could probably remake them into something else. He curved his pen around them, taking shape and life to edges. All the things he had dreamt of while pondering all the things he wanted to do dotting along the paper and keeping company amongst the bullet points. 

Apparently, the embellishments were a good thing, but the time it took to make them were not. Go figure. It was nice Than had brought that to his attention anyway. He’d been recruited to his post half for his penmanship and half for, well, no one else being around to do it. Somewhere along the eons, he’d simply forgotten the purpose of the lists. 

Nestled down deep and unchanging, Hypnos supposed it was inevitable that Zagreus would kick-start it again. He was doing a lot of that. His fire-brand footprints marking ways through the darkness, and giving light, in some ways, to keep the world turning. 

So maybe it was a bit of a lie to say Zagreus hadn’t been helping. Soft-spoken like the night, and unyielding like time, Zagreus made ripples even in the most uncertain of places. 

Where Zagreus got the energy, Hypnos didn’t know. Mortals counted sheep to enter his realm. Hypnos only had to think about Zagreus’ innumerable runs through Hell to do the same. His recent favorite was Zagreus narrowly avoiding being impaled by the Bull of Minos. He’d like Zagreus to know he sometimes remembered to cheer for him, even if he was a bigger fan of Asterius.

Hypnos jolted awake at the sound of Zagreus bubbling up from the Styx. The waves of red lapping at the edges of the stairs. 

Hypnos could see just where he left off the last time Zagreus got spit back to home. He could see the lines of ink trailing off the edge, the splotches of black dots where his hand had faltered while he’d slept. He held the list close, smiling under drooping lids at the Prince cutting through the procession of shades. He made sure to press it to his chest, ink surely dry by then.

He’d already checked what Zagreus had gone and got his assed kicked over this time. Advice for advice, Hypnos tapped his chin and came to a conclusion. He had half a mind to jot all this down for the Prince. Maybe he’d get through Hell easier that way.

“Oooh, you know, it’s probably a good idea  _ not _ to step on piping hot magma. Heard it hurts!”

Zagreus gave him a grin and an eyeroll. “I’ll remember that, mate, thanks.”

Hypnos tightly curled around the crumpling parchment in his hold. He narrowly avoided dropping the nectar thrown his way, too distracted by the crinkle of the prince’s eyes to get a good hold. The quick flick of both mismatched eyes, triumphant in the tiny way he’d tripped him up set Hypnos in a rare moment of adrenaline. He itched to go on break and pierce the murky liquid of his inkwells with his quill.

While it might be funny to hand it off the parchment to Lord Hades, his Master might not appreciate the tiny recreations of his son lining the sides of the margins. 

Zagreus’ smiling face; Zagreus getting munched on by numbskulls; or Zagreus making it to the surface. He hid those in his room, tucked away in a little chest where only his hands could reach.

He’d have to sacrifice his personal list making time, it seemed. It was fine, though. He’d just remake the official lists again during break. What was one more for the stash.

**Author's Note:**

> Mm, I had a thought and ran with it. Don't think I wrote them much in character but I wanted to try my hand for a bit. Got a uhhhhh unrequited hypzag fic in the making. Buut it needs a lot more work. The draft is at about 11.9k but idk what it'll be like when i finally set into. Its hypzag but I'm actually just excited for the teeny charon & hypnos brotherly moments i put in there for myself. i think i wrote him too woobie so i gotta go back and make him endearingly obnoxious the way he deserves to be.


End file.
